Global Peace Index 2010

Vision of Humanity is out with their 2010 Global Peace Index, a rating of the "state of peace" in 249 nations around the world:



Each of 149 countries are ranked on a five-point scale for 23 indicators, including, e.g., number of homicides; access to weapons; political instability; deaths from conflict (internal); weapons exports; number of displaced people; and number of conflicts fought.

So what is the most peaceful nation in the world? Those honors go to plucky, placid New Zealand for the second year in a row. (Being small, wealthy, and surrounded by ocean would tend to keep the dander down, I'd imagine.) The rest of the top 10:

2. Iceland
3. Japan
4. Austria
5. Norway
6. Ireland
7. Denmark
8. Luxembourg
9. Finland
10. Sweden

All ten of the most peaceful nations in the world are also among the most wealthy; the top three are all island nations. And - do I even need to mention it? - the entirety of Scandinavia is represented here.

The bottom of the scale is a bit more eclectic:

140. Democratic Republic of the Congo
141. Chad
142. Georgia
143. Russia
144. Israel
145. Pakistan
146. Sudan
147. Afghanistan
148. Somalia
149. Iraq

A smattering of countries from the former USSR, Central/South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some very poor countries, others (Russia, Israel) middle-income or higher. Peace comes in just one flavor, it would seem; conflict comes in many.

Some other country rankings I choose to highlight for my own capricious reasons: Germany (16), UK (31), France (32), Botswana (33), Laos (34), Bhutan (36), Vietnam (38), Sierra Leone (53), China (80), US (85), Kazakhstan (95), Iran (104), Mexico (107), South Africa (121), Thailand (124), India (128), North Korea (139). The report notes the top five risers on the list since 2009 (Ethiopia, Mauritania, Hungary, Lebanon, and Haiti), as well as the five biggest fallers (Cyprus, Russia, Philippines, Georgia, and Syria). The complete list is here (pdf), along with regional analyses and discussions of the top and bottom 10. Inexplicably, and a bit annoyingly, the folks at VoH continue to leave the beautiful and glorious Kyrgyz Republic off their rankings, along with a handful of other countries.

You can play with their map, which has a slider showing their rankings back to 2007, and also view maps for each of the component indicators. One trend I notice: a slight but steady movement towards greater peace in Africa. Is this just a blip, or the beginning of a long-term trend? It would certainly be wonderful if it were the latter.

I discussed the 2009 version of the map here.

Global Peace Index

Vision of Humanity has updated their Global Peace Index for 2009. The results:



Says Vision of Humanity:

The results of the Global Peace Index for 2009 suggest that the world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year, which appears to reflect the intensification of violent conflict in some countries and the effects of both the rapidly rising food and fuel prices early in 2008 and the dramatic global economic downturn in the final quarter of the year. Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions that have been registered by the GPI through various indicators measuring safety and security in society.

This is the third annual edition of the report which "is composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from respected sources, which combine internal and external factors ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighbouring countries and the level of respect for human rights." Three categories of criteria were used in calculating the index: "measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict, measures of safety and security in society and measures of militarization." Examples of measures of ongoing conflict include number of external and internal conflicts fought between 2002 and 2007, number of deaths from organized conflict, and relations with neighboring countries; examples of safety and security include political instability, levels of violent crime, and levels of disrespect for human rights; examples of militarization include military expenditure/GDP, volume of weapons shipments, and ease of access to small arms. You can get full details on the methodology here.

The index ranks 144 countries, though they irritatingly omit Kyrgyzstan, along with Turkmenistan, Niger, and several other countries. The full rankings are here. Here are the most and least peaceful, along with a few other countries I semi-arbitrarily deem important:

1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
2. Norway
4. Iceland
5. Austria
6. Sweden
7. Japan
8. Canada
9. Finland
9. Slovenia
11. Czech Republic
12. Ireland
16. Germany
22. Netherlands
30. France
35. United Kingdom
40. Bhutan
74. China
83. United States
85. Brazil
99. Iran
108. Mexico
118. Thailand
122. India
129. Nigeria
136. Russia
137. Pakistan
138. Chad
139. Democratic Republic of the Congo
140. Sudan
141. Israel
142. Somalia
143. Afghanistan
144. Iraq

I don't think it will surprise anyone that the developed countries of Europe top this list or that a number of African countries rank rather low. I'm a little bit surprised at how low a few countries in Asia rank, especially India and Thailand, and at how high some of the countries in Africa rank, frankly. But overall the rankings here seem pretty intuitive.